GI Joe once said, "knowing is half the battle." "Knowledge is power," and "the pen is mightier than the sword" were said by some other people. The point we're making here is that you need to have accurate and fully cited information about cilantro before you take this crusade into the field. Cilantro might have dealt the first blow but, as president George W. Bush once said, "fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

If you have an article or link that the IHC staff should post up here for everyone, submit it to us via the contact us page.

Some studies show that cilantro removes heavy metals from your body in a process called chelation.

Genetic Analysis of PTC and Cilantro Taste Preferences
Wikipedia says that cumin and coriander share the same plant family (remember those latin names from 6th grade biology?) which is known as Apiaceae or Umbelliferae. That plant family then contains about 300 genera, one of them being cuminum (Apiaceae Cuminum) and one of them being coriander (Apiaceae Coriandrum). This family is the family of other plants people mentioned like anise, fennel and dill, but also carrots and celery.

Incidentally, people share allergies in this family. See "Characterization of allergens in Apiaceae spices: anise, fennel, coriander and cumin" here:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9420134&dopt=Abstract

More about Apiaceae:
"It was the first flowering plant family recognized by botanists, about the end of the 16th century, and the first group of plants to be subjected to systematic (classification) study in 1672 by Robert Morrison. The Apiaceae is primarily noted for carrots, celery, fennel, parsley, parsnips, hemlock, and many herbs. Anise, cumin, coriander, and dill are among the many spices and culinary flavorings derived from these plants. The herbs in this family are near-cosmopolitan and largely found in temperate uplands."